Frosty Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 (edited) This started out as a roadkill ballpein I picked up a few years ago. I burned the broken fiberglass handle out a few days ago and reforged the ball into a straight pein. Annealed and did a little grinding to refine the profile, radius the face, etc. Heated to critical very slowly to assure a good soak and quenched in near boiling water. Tempered to dark straw verging on purple. Handle is from a 1" hickory plank I picked up a couple years ago for just this. Slightly tapered head to heal with a round edge on the pein edge and flatter edge on the face edge so I never have to look to know which end is which. I did the finish shaping with my belt grinder, 80# to contour and a worn 120# to smooth. I finished it after mounting the head by warming it in the oven at it's lowest setting 170f for half an hour, then applied Minwax Finishing paste wax liberally, allowing it to soak in between coats. I then buffed it out with a clean rag. Minwax finishing wax is a non-oily, non-slick, HARD finish wax. It makes for a very smooth non-slip handle finish. Much better than varnish, varathane, etc. in my opinion anyway. Head weight is about 20oz. and it worked pretty well for the short test drive I took it on yesterday. Frosty Edited April 14, 2009 by Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pac Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Very nice, thanks for good read Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaylan veater Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Frosty, Very nice remake. I love to remake old tools into new tools. I also like to use Minwax. Gaylan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orgtwister Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 nice work you gota love that roadkill finds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinbender Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Thanks for the idea Frosty, I have a few old ballpein heads and no idea where they came from but I know what to do with them now:) Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saintjohnbarleycorn Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 I like the ball end on the handle, I was thinking whether it was a good idea. I just recently found how to swing a hammer at least the next level I guess, and wondered if a ball end would be nice, I see that you seem to think so. kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Salvati Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Frosty, that is nice clean work, I see those hammers alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 14, 2009 Author Share Posted April 14, 2009 Thanks guys, it's doing it's job pretty well so far and will get better as I train it. The disk/ball on the end of the handle is just my way of reducing the chance of slinging it across the shop if it slips. Sometimes a fleck of scale will land on my hand and I won't notice right away. This is what's left over from splitting the 4" board to width. There isn't enough to get three handles and 2" is way too wide for my grip, 1 1/4" is comfortable so that's what's left. It's 1 1/8" at the head and just that little bit of taper over about 12" makes for a very secure grip even in my relaxed grip. I became a fan of slab handles a couple years ago after trying a Hofi hammer and have slowly been reshaping and replacing my old handles. Sometimes I can get away with sanding a commercial handle flat on the sides. What I really like about slab handles is just how effortlessly it indexes the hammer's position. I started out making it into an angle pein but forged it backwards and ended up twisting it to straight, I didn't want to try twisting it all the way the other way and chance over stressing it. The one thing I'm not crazy about is the balance of the head when using the pein, the flat face is much heavier so it takes a little more effort to keep it straight. Not much though, a little getting used to and it'll be a sweet hammer. It always takes a little time to train a new hammer. Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisB Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Very nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TASMITH Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Very nicely done Frosty! As usual the Blacksmith can always make something new and useful from something someone else has discarded.I'm sure it won't take you too long to train it. Terry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake pogrebinsky Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Frosty,you've done a heck of a nice,careful,neat job of it.I've a well-deserved pang of shame,for the way i treat my tools,reading this. One question-Do you not find the pein too sharp,in this configuration?I don't seem to be able to effectively prevent localised damage with anything less than 5/8" or so in radius.Poor quality A36,in particular,tends to get "brash" in location of radical transition. In the same time,a very fat-looking pein still seems to do it's job-the distortion is 90+% unidirectional,and no apparent harmonics damage. What are your thoughts on the pein radius,if i may ask? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monstermetal Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Cool.... .Yeah I bet that is a very aggressive hammer when forging. Alot of forward weight.. I might just have to give that a try. Nice Job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 HAH! You should see what my well used older hammers look like! This is a brand new rebirth so of course it's still baby butt smooth. I'm still getting a feel for this one, ran out of propane mid-heat yesterday, then had to get the bottle re-certified and ended up spending over $100 to fill it! ARGH! I have a number of straight peins, one with about a 1/2" radius and that's about as large as I like. It's a very effective hammer, much better than my recent remake. Most of the effect goes where it's supposed to and what little lateral spread I get is easily corrected. The new one will be for more precise and smaller work. It isn't really all that aggressive as it's only around 2lbs and the pein is a larger radius than it looks. I'll have to measure it and get back though, I just forged it and dressed it without measuring or more than keeping it uniform. All my factory cross peins have radii ranging from probably 1/8"-3/16" and all I do is dress them up and use them. I haven't noticed a problem with damage though suppose it'd be easier to over do with the more concentrated force. Then again I don't use a cross pein that much so I may find them too sharp if I used them more and for heavier work. Maybe you're just too strong Jake? Be gentle, it's ONLY iron. Thanks for the kind words guys, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 That is a cute little hammer. Like it's size and shape. Over heard at a swap meet: Blacksmith: "Listen Baby, I keep telling you any piece of iron that is roughly hammer shaped or any old file that is longer than your shoe is worth a buck" Wife: "Yeah, you keep telling me that. How about some more money to pickup up your trash." (calls his wife garage sale queen or annie depending) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 BTW I think that the straight peen hammer is the most over looked style. The hammer that I got from Centaur forge years ago collected dust for a while until I decided to grind down the peen to a reasonable radius. The orgional would have needed only a little sharpening to be a spliting wedge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Lumpkins Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Good job Frosty, I was told when you rework a hammer to bring it up to cherry red and then put it in a quart of water and let cool.. Whats your thoughts on that method.. Thanks for sharing with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 I don't know Tom. There are so many different hammer makers out there from high end custom jobs to cheap Chinese knock offs so I doubt one thing works for them all. I quenched mine from critical in hot water and tempered it to almost purple as it sparked like it's in the 1050-1060 range but it may be a bit on the hard side. I'm far from an expert at these things and tend to treat things like hammer heads as mystery metal unless I have specific info. Touching it to a grinder is a way to get some clue to what it might be carbon wise though it won't tell you much of anything about alloying metals. Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DClaville Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 very nice looking frosty DC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRAFTBENDER Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Frosty, you have forced me to consider doing the same thing to a ball pein I have with a loose handle. I doubt mine will turn out that good though. Thanks for the inspiration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 Let me know when I can quit twisting your arm. I'm getting tired! It wasn't that hard except maybe remembering which way I wanted the pein forged. I sure got THAT backwards big as . . . a pretty smile. (so THERE Glenn! ) I think you have more than enough skill to do what I did and get it right the first time. Thanks though, feels good to hear nice things. Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacksmith Jim Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Frosty, sometimes folks cut off a few millimeters of the flat side to even out the balance. The hammer looks real nice :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 I was wondering about doing that and hadn't decided yet. It seems to be taking to training fairly well so I may not have to do a face lift to get it on the right track. It's good to know it works first though. Thanks, Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 I was wondering about doing that and hadn't decided yet. It seems to be taking to training fairly well so I may not have to do a face lift to get it on the right track. It's good to know it works first though. Thanks, Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fe-Wood Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Frosty- Nice to see some of your work! And darn pretty to boot! Sounds like your getting it trained to come around to your way of thinking... Good on ya!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Thanks, did you see the Francisca Wasilla? "RR spike axes seem popular" thread. Deb's been kidding me all evening, I don't do blades so she's been having fun rubbing it in. Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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